Brian Surgenor PhD, P.Eng

Dr. Surgenor has a BSc in Mechanical Engineering from Queen's, an MEng from McMaster, and his PhD from Queen’s – earned while working as a sessional instructor. He has been instrumental in driving innovative research and teaching in the department since his arrival. Dr. Surgenor has held several administrative positions including Head of the Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering (1993-2002), Acting Head in 2007 and Associate Dean (Graduate Studies, Research and External Affairs, 2008 – 2013) and Vice-Dean (Research and Graduate Studies, 2013-2016). Dr. Surgenor believes in the importance of multi-disciplinary approaches, innovation and growth which was evident while he served as a Project Manager during the design and construction of Mitchell Hall and is currently an active member of Ingenuity Labs Research Institute.

Areas of Research 

• Machine vision
• Autonomous vehicles 
• Manufacturing automation
• Mechatronics engineering education

Prof. Surgenor's early research interest was in the area of pneumatic servosystems. Exposure to automation problems in manufacturing led to an applied research interest in the area of intelligent algorithms for machine vision systems. A developing interest is in the area of vision systems for off-road and on-road autonomous vehicles. Prof. Surgenor is also active in the field of mechatronic system design education and is the Director of the new Mechatronics and Robotics Engineering undergraduate program at Queen's. 

Further information on past, current or future projects, please contact Prof. Surgenor directly.

Current Research Projects

The following projects are currently being supervised:

• Remote Inspection of Bridge Infrastructure using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (PhD)
• Multi-Vehicle Cooperation over Rough Terrain: Experiments with Active Coupling (MASc)

Courses

• MREN 103 Mechatronics and Robotics Design I (Winter 2023)
• MECH 452 Mechatronics Engineering (Fall 2021)
• APSC 200 Engineering Design and Practice (Winter 2020)
• MECH 852 Mechatronics for Automation (Winter 2019)

Click here to go to the Department's Research Home Page

Recent Graduate Student Theses 

• Multi-Vehicle Cooperation over Rough Terrain: Experiments with Passive Coupling (2022 MASc)
• Self-Supervisor Near-To-Far Approach for Terrain-Adaptive Off-Road Autonomous Driving (2022 PhD)
• Force-Based Control of UGVs by Using Physical Human-Robot Interaction, Naveena Pandillapally (2020 MASc)

There is one opening for a new MASc graduate student starting September 2023:

• Adaptive Trajectory Tracking of a Scaled Autonomous Vehicle